RomeSweetHome wrote:Aieno, when God changed someone’s name in the Bible, it is not like when we change our name in court. It meant a change of who the person was. When Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter, he was doing two things: asserting that he could do so in the first place (which meant he was God); and asserting that he was establishing on the person of Peter a visible Church.
The word rock also has special significance. On one hand, to be called “rock” was a Semitic expression designating the solid foundation upon which a community would be built. For instance, Abraham was considered “rock” because he was the father of the Jewish people (and we too refer to him as our father in faith) and the one with whom the covenant was first made.
On the other hand, no one except God was called specifically “rock,” nor was it ever used as a proper name except for God. To give the name “rock” to St. Peter indicates that our Lord entrusted to him a special authority. Most anti-papal Protestants try to play linguistic games with the original Greek gospel text where the masculine gender word petros, meaning a small, moveable rock, refers to St. Peter while the feminine gender word petra, meaning a massive, immovable rock, refers to the foundation of the Church. However, in the Aramaic language, which is what Jesus spoke, the word Kepha, meaning rock, would be used in both places without gender distinction or difference in meaning.
This is from page one of this thread where you imply Jesus changed Peter's name and made him the head of the church on earth in Matthew 16. Then you changed your position that the timing of the name change is immaterial. Also on page one I posted this link
http://wwwskutan.smf.se/Skutan/Skutans_ ... =Printable where the author has established that "Petros" was a proper name before Jesus referred to Simon as a "rock" in John 1.
Also if the "law of first mention" is valid then the first time "rock" is mentioned in Scripture in regard to any thing other than geology it applies to God, which only demonstrates that you cannot seem to be consistent in your argument.